Trees knocked down, roads flooded 2nd time in a week

Heavy rains caused power outages, flooding and damage across the Charleston area for the second time in one week on Friday.

Kimberly Earl and her husband, Cody, were in their home on Bakers Fork Road with two of their four kids when a massive tree uprooted on the hill across from their house, slamming onto their roof.

"Every time it rains," she said, "a little more of that hillside washes away."

The Earls had spoken to their landlord this week about the tree that fell on the house, saying they were worried because they could see the roots of the tree.

"I guess we just didn't get it taken care of fast enough," Earl said.

Earl said she knew something bad was going to happen when the rain started to fall so fast.

"I was actually watching another tree when I heard a branch crash down and I yelled to my husband, 'We gotta go!'" she said. "We had a baby sleeping downstairs, so [Cody] grabbed our 3-year-old and we all ran down to the basement and huddled in the hallway until it stopped."

The family was stuck in the house for a little while after a 911 dispatcher told them not to open any doors or windows until the power company shut down the live wires littering the couple's front yard.

Earl said this is the second time her family will be without power this week, after they lost power for more than 24 hours during Monday's windstorm, which knocked out power to almost 50,000 people statewide.

Earl's minivan was parked in the driveway -- right where the tree hit -- and is likely ruined.

"So I get the new car?" she said with a laugh. "There's a silver lining somewhere."

Eastbound Interstate 64 coming into Charleston was at a standstill for more than an hour after the heavy rain flooded a large area of the roadway.

Shortly before 3 p.m., a heavy downpour started to fall in the Charleston area that looked like "pure sheets of rain," said a Kanawha County Metro 911 dispatcher.

Water was falling so hard, the dispatcher said, that it was also pouring down the side of the hill near the interstate, inundating the road between the Montrose and Oakwood Drive exits.

Traffic was at a standstill and was unable to move until the water receded, according to the dispatcher.

"There is lots of water and tons of debris in the road," the dispatcher said.

The West Virginia Division of Highways sent street sweepers to the area to deal with the water and debris. They shoveled mud and branches out of the road so traffic could again move freely.

Up to 2 feet of rain settled on the roadway between Oakwood and Montrose, a dispatcher said.

Folks inside Pies and Pints Pizzeria on Capitol Street were surprised by the heavy storm when water started to leak into the leaded windows that line the front of the restaurant.

Rebecca, one of the manager's, said the rain was coming down so hard, "I couldn't even see Ellen's, across the street -- And we're both brightly decorated," she said. "It just came down so hard and so fast."

Water in the building is uncommon for the pizzeria, but Rebecca said that once the weather gets a little warmer, they'll replace the windows just in case.

Dispatchers said they expected the intersection of Jefferson Road and Davis Creek to be shut down through Friday evening because of utility lines and trees down in the area.

At 6:15 p.m., almost 1,300 people were without power in Kanawha County, according to an outage map on Appalachian Power's website.